Talking about public opinion, reportedly a delegation of Chinese journalists, invited to visit the attack site in N.Y. by the US state department, had started cheering and clapping when shown footage of the impacts. Unfortunately their reaction probably reflects the opinions of many of their countrymen who'd like nothing better than seeing the USA knocked down from their sole superpower pedestal thereby making room for China's own ascent. Of course the fact that the three Chinese killed in the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy (and their main spy center in Europe, ironically) in Belgrade were journalists possibly added fuel to their schadenfreude.
Interestingly I've only seen this news broadcast in Hong Kong (formerly UK's and now People's Republic of China's colony) evening news.
Oh, I hope I didn't reveal any state secrets since they could easily track me down and kick me out of their territory...
Only a decade or so ago it was the Soviet regime that was imprisoning their own scientists, sometimes because of "non-socialist" behaviour, perhaps simply for approving of "western" commercial/capitalistic principles. The FBI would play cat and mouse against their "evil" (probably back then they indeed were more sinister) KGB counterparts.
Now we have a scientist from democratic Russia, working for a company with ex-KGB affiliations, jailed by FBI, the guardians of ultra-capitalistic USA. And FBI is now the the state organ protecting state-approved monopoly on information claimed by US-based Adobe Corporation. National Profit comes before Scientific (or personal) Freedom.
O Tempora O Mores.
This case made me realize that non-US citizens apparently have no constitutional rights in the USA, the self-proclaimed "home of the free". I wonder if that also applies to green-carded residents such as, hmm, Linus. Until this incident I only knew one (aspiring) superpower which would detain visiting scholars under the all-encompassing pretext of "state security". Now there's another superpower, the pretext simply being the all-mighty corporate Profit instead.
And MS didn't even need to buy out VA Linux (and its subsidiaries like this site) to get their divisive plants all the way in.
The pro-MS troops hailing Katz' conclusions seem very adept at the art of "moderation" as well. God Bless Free Competition.
Welcome to the new Slashdot Reality, where Newspeak is alive and well and resistance *is* futile. MS has no monopoly and the public has all the choice they deserve. There is no MS-tax as long as PC components exist separately. Netscape choke their own air supply because their future owner AOL/Time-Warner are an evil monopoly that must be terminated. MS is an admirably tough Great American Enterprise that must be allowed to continue foiling evil plots e.g. by Torvalds and his gang of brainwashed communist provocateurs to destroy World Freedom aka U.S. Capitalism. Judges must never create opinions, let alone voice them, but simply pass American-style verdicts in the name of Consumer Benefit. The biblical Bush is indeed burning here and now... scorching away un-Americanisms.
Please mod this post down to -1 troll to give it a decent burial. --
The crux of your statement (that Burney does not understand the goal of Linux in Corel's overall strategy) is based on a number of false premises, false facts and misconceptions.
The point of it all is: Corel is an _applications_ developer and Burney's realized that they must refocus to _applications_ (on the three main platforms) in order to dig themselves out of the hole. The dumb mainstream press took the comments about Corel "selling Linux" to also refer to Corel's applications, and that fundamental misunderstanding was immediately repeated ad nauseaum by the shoot-from-the-hip crowd who ridiculed Corel for quitting Linux involvement altogether.
Spinning off the NetWinder was smart; Rebel.com (Linux on Transmeta "server appliances") is running with that ball and Corel still holds a stake in them.
The Linux-centric OS vendors are now finally starting to focus on the desktop users so Corel's mission on that front is accomplished. I'm sure Corel would love to see their own desktop-centric Linux OS division joining forces with an established distro vendor, but if the latter want to stick to their own guns, Corel might as well spin off their distro (i.e. the Linux OS division and their know-how) e.g. to the Linux Global Partners (?) who have already invested in many high-profile Linux projects (that are desktop-centric).
"Integrated Linux desktops" will be a result of _partnering_. Different vertical or geographical markets call for different partners. Corporations like Sun can afford to do a lot of subsidizing thanks to the huge revenues from their hardware sales (mostly tied to Solaris) unlike the bruised-by-Microsoft Corel.
It is ironic that, apart from dirty MS tricks, large reason for Corel's financial woes over the last few years was to believe in Sun's claims that Java was going to become viable as a desktop environment. The Java efforts cost Corel enormously, and how did Sun thank Corel for their efforts (let down by Sun's Java delivery)? By buying the fledgling StarDivision and flooding the market (esp. the Linux market) with free copies of the suite. Sure, Sun's main target was MS, but they're not exactly eating into MS-Office's marketshare on Windows... (why would the PC OEMs promote offerings by Sun, their competitor??) Furthermore, it is also ironic that the much-hyped OpenOffice project depends largely on Sun's contributions while Sun themselves see Linux as a threat to their cash-cow proprietary server market. (what does McNealy really want?)
There's your "three great ideas, all ahead of their time, all fouled up in the execution".
The "end-to-end" solution provider dream came pretty much to an end when Borland's shareholders (of whom MS is one, albeit not openly) and the MS-friendly press helped kill the merger plan last spring. Now MS remains the only source of integrated _office_ solutions, not surprisingly catering for the Windows environment(s) only. And all the big OEMs are still "offering" only MS-taxed desktop preloads. Despite the possibilities built-to-order manufacturing offers, where are the Linux or even WordPerfect Office on Windows options? The problem doesn't lie in Corel's corner...
The MS investment in Corel, and the highly restrictive agreements tied to the money, might have been a shrewed plan by Burney (whose father's been a career diplomat, btw) all along. Until that deal the regulators never gave a damn about Microsoft's second, and most lucrative, monopoly in Office suites. Now the Office suites are back in the agenda, just in time for the latest Appeals Court antitrust hearings which otherwise don't seem to go too well for the DOJ under the newly emboldened Republican mindset sweeping the US leadership. Corel looks set to keep much or all the M$ cash while MS gets more scrutiny for their anti-competitive behaviour besides probably having to sell their non-voting Corel shares anyway. Corel's spinning off the distro division also makes practically sure that MS can't use it as their proprietary yet limited.NET platform. I think Burney could have done much worse than he has in his less than six months as Corel's CEO.
As a final note, I would like to express my deep disappointment for the negative editorial slant Mr. Taco consistently dishes out at Corel: "I kinda think its just spin, the kinda stuff you say when you're going down like 'Duck and Cover'" Also, just how hell does Corel's continued support for their distro, until a new owner is found, constitute "an apparent attempt to capitolize on the recent woes at Suse" !!?? What is dot-com millionaire Taco's beef with Corel? As if the FUD against Corel from the pro-MS press (like ZDNET) wasn't enough...
with open source, there's no way [to make money] because you don't control your intellectual property.
I have no control over the closed source stuff I write to pay the bills. My employer controls that. They use that control to restrict the freedom of the purchasers of that software.
You're being paid by your evil employers for doing their dirty deeds...
I think what Derek Burney actually means is that open source software removes his ability to extort money from his user base.
You don't happen to be on Corel's payroll by any chance?
In any case, I suggest you stop accepting "dirty" money from any company involved in such extortionist activities such as (dare I say it) selling software.
Way to go Corel! You've earned my contempt.
Yeah! Linux or its users need no steenkin' software companies! (well, one or two 100% GNU consultancies may continue to exist as long as noone gets paid). Hell, we should dump Leh-nooks while we're at it - GNU/HURD is the ONLY TRUE CHOICE!
While Burney makes some stupid generalizations in his interview, your post is full of them, and yours are based on Corel's past mistakes made by the former CEO who Burney replaced. Now that's insightful.
Yes, you can make money with Linux, but Burney was talking about (selling) distributions and generally from an ISV's POV. It's not a goldmine, neither should it be, but to create a comprehensive MS replacement solution aimed at your average consumer (who are the ones buying apps) costs plenty. I like Red Hat (for their GPL policy for instance), but they have never pushed the desktop aspect (for you and me and our clueless relatives). Instead, RH went for the server bucks. No problem there, but it's apples vs. oranges. Corel is in the desktop apps business.
You just can't make money the way Corel attempted to do it.
They screwed up bigtime. Rather than making solid apps for Linux, they attempted to embrace and extend it- tried to offer an "end-to-end" solution in a position where they weren't ready to provide it.
Did you read the article? Corel's distro was a vehicle for them to jumpstart the desktop business on Linux, to create a user-friendly platform on which to sell their desktop applications. Had it been a moneyspinner they probably had wanted to keep the Linux OS division, but apparently having it created unnecessary complications to their relationship with other distro vendors. Partner or foe?
I want someone to provide the end-to-end solutions sooner rather than later as I'd like to "Linux" (as a verb) all my friends and relatives, but currently I'd end up doing tech support 24/7 myself. The Eazel & Ximian projects look promising to me in that respect.
Solid apps... yeah, Corel screwed up with their first WINE-based Linux release (WP Office 2000), but the later CorelDraw and PhotoPaint releases were actually okay (besides some distro-specific scripting and font server issues). I've heard that "service packs" might be under way, and that Corel is hoping (although not promising) that the next version upgrades would 1) ship simultaneously with the Windows versions, and 2) be native Linux executables using Winelib instead of the WINE runtime. Either way, WINE's a lot better now than it was a year ago anyway.
They wasted time and money on NetWinder (which is an amazing piece of hardware) by designing it and then going nowhere with it. Dumb move.
Surely you knew that Corel sold the NetWinder division to Rebel for a stake in that company. What's dumb about that?
They wasted time and money doing a Linux distribution on their own when they could have partnered with another distribution vendor and worked together.
Huh? Which existing distro company was ready and willing to go for it in '99? Which distro company is willing to go for such arrangement now? Tell us, Corel is looking for just such a partner.
Again, Corel didn't "get" the open source development model until it was too late, but their "wasted" coding efforts are freely available from Corel's CVS server.
They spent time and money that could have been spent making cross-platform versions or slightly differing, but functionality complete of their applications (a' la WordPerfect 8 for Unix) doing WINE upgrades so that they could be lazy and migrate the Windows versions over.
Duh. WINE was seen as a useful tool in helping fill the gaps in Linux' desktop app offerings to enable consumers to migrate over. I want Corel to build native Linux apps as much as the next guy, but we aren't talking about Freecell here. It takes time, money and sweat. WINE, and Winelib, work great as the first steps for former Windows-only ISVs. I believe even IBM's SOHO business suite is "wined", with e.g. SmartSuite coming as a Windows-only filler.
Do you really think they've got a solid grasp on things as they are? They've been grasping at straws for years now (...)
Oh, let's hold the former CEO's mistakes against Corel forever, shall we?
If you want ISVs like Corel to get the hell outta Linux business, just say so. Personally I'd rather see the Windows ISV's supporting Linux so one day soon all of my friend or relatives could put their Windows partitions to better use.
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If you aren't going to be Open Source, it had better be software so special that you don't have competition, or an Open Source project might come along and eat your lunch. This means your product should probably be in a vertical market, not something everybody needs, or something that really does not work in the Open Source model (like TurboTax).
Bruce, you're saying that Linux (the only significant free and level platform) will only be a potential market if companies target some vertical niche far away from any mainstream itch?
Now there's a sales pitch to the software industry currently considering whether to provide software for the Linux desktop.
Is the community really hellbent on recreating or borging ("your code will be assimilated") most everything above the platform (operating system) services? Doesn't such mentality lead to the software industry (the one besides Open Source consulting services) staying away from Linux in droves?
As I see it, Linux is great as an enabling platform, but although often enthusiastic initially, many (if not most) Open Source projects aren't actually very successful in providing good end-user experiences (e.g. support or continuity). What already scratches a geek itch may leave your average end-user completely in the dark.
It's ironic that your pitch is exactly what Microsoft wants to hear and what the flame-kiddies have been saying all along; that Linux is no place for a thriving commercial marketplace, especially for the masses.
Sure, this limits how much money you can make selling Linux software. We like it that way, and we are getting all of the software that we need, thank you.
Who's the we getting all needed software? The corporation that affords to pay you a six-figure salary for being their Linux showpiece thanks to their proprietary hardware (and software) business - Hewlett-Packard?
In any case, you certainly aren't speaking for me.
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I think their Linux distribution is another example. While an admirable goal, it's still a little too soon for Linux to make any real inroads on the majority of desktops. KDE and Gnome are both very good, but there's serious questions both at the distibution/system library level and at the user-interface integration level that need to be tackled before anyone can really seriously recommend it's use to novices.
Unlike in '99 when Corel released their consumer distro, now the Gnome and KDE have gotten their proverbial shit together and the end-user friendliness is starting to show. Unlike the business/server oriented distro companies, the consumer-oriented Mandrake and to lesser extent SuSE have easier time to build user-friendly Linux editions. The upcoming seamless (and intelligent) update utilities and infrastructures look very impressive, promising to make Linux the easiest-to-maintain platform to date.
Even as a mere Linux app vendor, Corel can still provide occasional touches and polish to strategically important projects if they so desire. But their own Corel-branded distro has become unnecessary and frankly I'd rather not see all the thousands upon thousands of app vendors planning to build their own distros, even if LSB will some day make them more or less interoperable.
IMO, the new CEO is doing the right thing -- trimming unneeded (unprofitable) parts off the company until such time as they can afford to take such chances. Linux's shot at the end-user's desktop may yet come, but it's clear that it's not the time for that yet...
Actually, I believe the Corel distro operation was slightly profitable, at least until all the FUD about Corel quitting all things Linux started flying around. But the downside was that all the other distro vendors saw Corel as a competitor and not as a partner selling cross-platform productivity solutions to MS-infested businesses. Red Hat et al could certainly use additional weapons to help them win more business accounts.
If Corel's next Linux versions of WPO (2002) and Draw 10 can be ported into native executables using Winelib (which I believe to be their plan) instead of the current WINE runtime approach, I might finally take the bait. I'm quite suspicious of Sun's motives behind their "office politics", and even more so of Microsoft's own-it-all monopoly abuse. A native WPO for Linux would fit the bill nicely.
What kind of idiot wouldn't want James Earl Jones announcing the steps of the boot process?
Now that would be smashing. I'd have my box boot up with a baby cry that ominously transforms into a Darth Vader-like behind-the-mask voice with the first words being: "You're my father!"
But seriously, voice feedback would be great, esp. if Linux got there first. Text-to-voice has existed for over a decade, so what is needed is a Vader-like voice profile and a kernel module taking control early on.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind having Dear Vader read me my mail aloud, and web pages too.
For Windows addicts, the only "choice" of voices available should naturally be the whiny, high-pitched nasal output of their own Great Chairman.
Are these sub-subs available without having to pay the Microsoft Tax?
Also, I recall reading that the TM-5x00 series of Crusoes has been "optimized" for MS-Windows while they also support "other x86-based operating systems", incl. Linux. Are they also "optimized" for Linux, or was that just market-speak for x86 tuning? Can the processors (the Code Morphin' core) be upgraded by customers themselves, if necessary or desirable?
Many big businesses have important applications built in-house that they'd like to be able to run stably under WIN32 environment such as WINE not only because W2K et al are very expensive to deploy but to get off the forced upgrade merry-go-round altogether. Now, having paying customers moving away from the influence of MS-Windows is a scary no-revenue no-control no-win proposal for Microsoft.
It may only take some serious questioning by MS about the purity of the WIN32 alternatives' clean-room implementation to scare off large potential customers from investing in the alternative to MS-Windows.
Perhaps such fears would end up making Borland's Delphi -> Kylix approach more attractive since Borland, IIRC, has settled their IP issues with MS, and the resulting binaries would be native on multiple platforms (Linux and WindowsXX initially).
WINE is a very useful project, but perhaps they'd ought to draw a line somewhere, stop chasing the ever-changing WIN32 APIs-of-the-day ad nauseum and concentrate on perfecting the most common legacy WINxx environments while creating a mature and non-changing Winelib target for those WINxx ISVs who want to target Linux customers the easy but supportable way.
MS can still win small battles with their FUD, but the momentum in the war has turned to our advantage.
Um, duh, did the context of the story ("Wine runs Word 2000 and Excel 2000") escape you, or has someone actually run Mac OS versions of MS-Office apps under non-MS Windows environment such as Wine?
MS used the restrictive license for their applications (one de facto monopoly) to protect their operating system monopoly on PC's.
Btw, _Mac_OS_ isn't one of Micros~1's own trademarked Windows[tm] versions, you got that right.
Talking about the Mac OS and MS-Office, what's Appleworks' (the only "suitish" alternative there) marketshare like? Is MS-Office for Mac not the result of Microsoft's investment in then-dying Apple back in '98 (contractual 5-year agreement along with cash infusion similar to those in Borland and Corel later on to prop up the appearance of competition)? Can you come up with any better examples of MS action _not_ designed to protect their monopoly control?
I haven't bought or used Micros~1's, eh, products for over half a decade (and therefore haven't got their licensing booklets handy), but it used to be common knowledge that they didn't allow their apps to be run under anything but their own trademarked Windows[tm] versions. True/False/Escape?
Btw, I don't really understand why some people are so eager to support the other monopoly Micros~1 has, especially when supported commercial or open-source alternatives do exist.
We don't need to respond to MS "in kind" - just let them keep the low ground they've taken.
Instead, the Linux luminaries in Germany (and elsewhere) should gear up for a PR campaign to highlight Linux's natural evolution and "survival of the fittest" versus Microsoft's commercial dictatorship of computing infrastructure.
Let's take the high ground and thank MS for publicizing Linux's versatility.
Well, _D_ebian isn't exactly a struggling competitor by any standard. Besides, they have no legal issues to be settled nor proprietary treasures that could be locked away as everything is released as genuine Open Source.
MS appears to take some 18 months or so between alphabets so we still have a while to identify the next competitor to be staked.
Hmm, wasn't _E_azel planning an IPO in not-so-distant future?
Do I see a pattern here? MS beats competition (_A_pple, _B_orland _C_orel etc.) to the ground before grabbing a stake in them, "settling legal issues" and leaving them on lifesupport so that everything looks fine and dandy to the gov't watchdogs. Was Corel's Office for Linux a real threat to MS, and what will become of Corel's Linux initiatives after this?
IIRC some state attorney-generals were planning (in '97, '98?) to sue MS for using the Windows monopoly to kill competitors to MS-Office, but that suit was put on a backburner when the DOJ managed to pull the AGs together for the browser/anti-trust case instead. Perhaps Corel didn't have the money to pursue that suit and settled for MS Airsupply instead. How sad, how MS.
Anyway, now I almost hope that Corel the MS-subsidiary would get out of the Linux space and leave the arena to companies and communities not owned by Microsoft.
And the "_core_ of the Mac OS X" is mainstream? Forgetting for a moment that Mac OS X or even its v1.0 release date haven't been actually announced yet.
That's some serious mainstream but only inside Apple's own private sand box (where RDF levels are often very hazardous to sanity).
So, even if we would mercifully consider "the core of Mac OS X" having anything to do with Apple's 5% (4% in 1998) market share on the desktop (IDG)- which is a "WHOLE LOT MORE" than Linux' 17% on servers (source?) - you forgot to add Linux' 4% desktop market share (IDG; 0.4% in 1998) into the equation.
Dear Leader Jobs is almost done "milking Mac OS for all it's worth" so now it must be time to increase the intensity in milking the good name of Open Source.
APPLE IS THE UNDISPUTED LEADER IN OPEN SOURCE is not much different from APPLE INVENTED OPEN SOURCE; both claims are equally true but only to persons believing in Apple.
Someone needs to swing a hammer at that QuickTime screen you've all been watching...
They refer to Caldera Systems as "Caldera" and say it was founded in '94 when "Caldera Systems" ("Linux for eBusiness") is in fact a subsidiary of Caldera and was spinned off on September 02, 1998 along with "Caldera Thin Clients, Inc." (since renamed as Lineo).
I believe it is a bit irresponsible for a "Linux stock site" to keep using the wrong title for the company especially when it was Caldera and not Caldera Systems that agreed to settle the DR-DOS suit with Microsoft for an unspecified sum.
CmdrTaco plugs in his opening the Linsight entry for Caldera Systems as a good summary. Hello? There is next to no useful (and correct) information for potential investors. Could someone kindly answer or correct answers to the following questions:
1) What percentage of the stock is available for public, how many shares are there in total and who owns those?
2) 10% of the public offering (which itself was 5% of total) was targeted to selected Open Source developers and _friends_. What was the breakdown between friends and developers (who have only seem to have gotten a number of shares closer to the low end of the 100-500 share allocation per person)?
3) Which individual owns 73% and controls everything?
4) Who got in before the IPO at $6 per share? (Sun, SCO, Citrix, Novell etc.)
5) Fiscal '99 results: $3mil revenue and $9.4mil loss.
6) Quarter ending Jan. 31.: $553,000 of revenue and a net loss of $5.5 million
7) Product portfolio: OpenLinux distro (and...?)
8) Open Source licensing status of OpenLinux (or other products)?
Every single well-informed CALD investor should be able to answer these questions so let's see if anyone's interested. What comes to Linsight, they would serve those interested in "Linux stocks" much better by also delivering important facts about covered companies instead of only scratching the surface and keeping tabs of companies' PR releases.
IIRC Corel licensed VBA from from M$ last year, probably not be totally shunned from the business sector that M$ helds hostage.
However the merger with Inprise/Borland will give the combined company ability to also integrate the Delphi/Kylix scripting capabilities with Corel's Office for Linux and _that_ should make Corel's Office (for Linux or 'doze) a lot more attractive to enterprises.
"Innovation" without (adequately) well documented public specs is hopefully becoming a thing of a past. Like Apple, the PC industry has its warts, but unlike Apple the PC industry gives customers (and OEMs) the choice of buying/building non-proprietary systems which *cannot* be singlehandedly obsoleted by some arrogant CEO.
Apple's "PC's" are nice thanks mostly to their choice of CPUs (that "G3" or "G4" after "Powermac") but otherwise always a little behind the "PC industry's" cutting edge. That's because on the PC side it's not just Compaq, Dell, Gateway etc. "innovating" their own closed technologies but a much richer ecosystem of specialized companies who want to be compatible with the industry to maximize the size of their potential market. Like with Open Source, the New Apple is tapping into the large pool of freely available resources with pleasure while still keeping the end result essentially a locked "Apple solution".
And what "additions to OSC work" is Apple giving back to community anyway that they weren't required to give back in the first place _and_ what didn't primarily advance Apple's own platform-challenged agenda behind the curtain?
What benefit is it for Apple to e.g. keep withholding the _specs_ (and not complete system schemas btw.) of discontinued systems?
How do you and Apple "get" that in an intellectually and artistically superior way?
This "story" by CmdrTaco is certainly one of the weirdest I've seen in a while. 10% investment advice and 90% very personally taken _off-topic_ rant justifying rejected submissions.
Or is the rant really off-topic?
As it happens, another - and 100% Linux and Slashdot-related - investment story has been posted to both Linux Weekly News (2/17) and Linux Today (2/19). (Would these be "cheesy little websites with the word "Linux" that CmdrTaco was referring to in his rant?) The story these other two Linux news sites posted was based on an article in the Financial Observer titled "The Latest Rip-offs From Dot-Com Land" and it cast Slashdot's former and current owners in rather bad light. Yes, it was about investing.
"One of the most cynical deals recently involves the merger of two software companies trying to cash in on the Linux operating system craze: Andover.net Inc. of Acton, Mass., and VA Linux Systems Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif.-which went public within 24 hours of each other back in early December. Less than eight weeks later, on Feb. 3, the two companies announced a stock-for-stock merger..."
"As for investors in VA Linux, they are getting hosed... the only really valuable asset Andover.net ever had - it's cash from the I.P.O.-was creamed off by the company's insiders almost the very instant they got their hands on it, leaving VA Linux's shareholders to face a 100 percent increase in the float of their own stock for the privilege of winding up with the worthless trash that the Andover.net bunch dumped at the very first opportunity."
Now, this story with IMO considerable relevance to Slashdot readers (not only because these companies own Slashdot and made her founders very wealthy, but also because so many stories were posted here in the past plugging these companies and their IPO) was certainly submitted a number of times but it's getting rejected while another story about MS having owning 10% of Inprise now ends up with 4% of Corel passes the submission filters.
Call me cynical and a conspiracy theorist but I find it hard to believe that CmdrTaco finds the posted story more interesting or relevant to himself and his audience than the one rejected.
No, I don't think you're a loonie, but for starters have a look around yourself. Do you have schemas for any single one of those (hardware) gadgets around you? For PCs, monitors, printers, modems, TVs, radios and what not...? I didn't think so.
Transmeta happened to sink billions into the development of a chip that goes into a gadget. It happens to have a partially "soft core" but it's still there to run your software like any other CPU or DSP. Now, unless Transmeta stands out from the hardware crowd and open sources their Crusoe schemas you're labelling their employee-of-the-month Mr Torvals as a GNU-traitor or his employment there as an ethical compromise? Are you saying that Torvalds could not work for any hardware company without losing his integrity in your eyes?
As your examples for ethical (?) companies you cite SuSE, Turbolinux and VALinux. The former two do have closed source enhancements and applications in their distros, no? VALinux doesn't give you the schemas for their hardware either, do they? Transmeta builds a new chip (and even optimizes it to run Linux), open sources the Mobile Linux distro they've worked on as they should but they are somehow evil? Like IBM and other large hardware companies that have come around to support Linux?
You "support Metcalfe's pointing out the strong smell of hypocrisy surrounding certain actions by some in the open Source community". It only smells like ludicrucy and sour grapes in here.
The sooner we stop hitting links leading to Metcalfe the sooner the poor guy finds his peace in retirement. He's not going to "get it" in this lifetime.
What suprises me though is why the highly-esteemd Infoworld still publishes his tabloid column.
Looking at the list of vendors working on Linux-based "info appliances" surely at least some of these companies realize that support for streaming media is a must for a consumer-oriented information or Internet appliances. The Missing Broadcasting Link...
Slashdot Mirror
Talking about public opinion, reportedly a delegation of Chinese journalists, invited to visit the attack site in N.Y. by the US state department, had started cheering and clapping when shown footage of the impacts. Unfortunately their reaction probably reflects the opinions of many of their countrymen who'd like nothing better than seeing the USA knocked down from their sole superpower pedestal thereby making room for China's own ascent. Of course the fact that the three Chinese killed in the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy (and their main spy center in Europe, ironically) in Belgrade were journalists possibly added fuel to their schadenfreude.
Interestingly I've only seen this news broadcast in Hong Kong (formerly UK's and now People's Republic of China's colony) evening news.
Oh, I hope I didn't reveal any state secrets since they could easily track me down and kick me out of their territory...
Only a decade or so ago it was the Soviet regime that was imprisoning their own scientists, sometimes because of "non-socialist" behaviour, perhaps simply for approving of "western" commercial/capitalistic principles. The FBI would play cat and mouse against their "evil" (probably back then they indeed were more sinister) KGB counterparts.
Now we have a scientist from democratic Russia, working for a company with ex-KGB affiliations, jailed by FBI, the guardians of ultra-capitalistic USA. And FBI is now the the state organ protecting state-approved monopoly on information claimed by US-based Adobe Corporation. National Profit comes before Scientific (or personal) Freedom.
O Tempora O Mores.
This case made me realize that non-US citizens apparently have no constitutional rights in the USA, the self-proclaimed "home of the free". I wonder if that also applies to green-carded residents such as, hmm, Linus. Until this incident I only knew one (aspiring) superpower which would detain visiting scholars under the all-encompassing pretext of "state security". Now there's another superpower, the pretext simply being the all-mighty corporate Profit instead.
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A. Bullard
The pro-MS troops hailing Katz' conclusions seem very adept at the art of "moderation" as well. God Bless Free Competition.
Welcome to the new Slashdot Reality, where Newspeak is alive and well and resistance *is* futile. MS has no monopoly and the public has all the choice they deserve. There is no MS-tax as long as PC components exist separately. Netscape choke their own air supply because their future owner AOL/Time-Warner are an evil monopoly that must be terminated. MS is an admirably tough Great American Enterprise that must be allowed to continue foiling evil plots e.g. by Torvalds and his gang of brainwashed communist provocateurs to destroy World Freedom aka U.S. Capitalism. Judges must never create opinions, let alone voice them, but simply pass American-style verdicts in the name of Consumer Benefit. The biblical Bush is indeed burning here and now... scorching away un-Americanisms.
Please mod this post down to -1 troll to give it a decent burial.
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A. Bullard
The point of it all is: Corel is an _applications_ developer and Burney's realized that they must refocus to _applications_ (on the three main platforms) in order to dig themselves out of the hole. The dumb mainstream press took the comments about Corel "selling Linux" to also refer to Corel's applications, and that fundamental misunderstanding was immediately repeated ad nauseaum by the shoot-from-the-hip crowd who ridiculed Corel for quitting Linux involvement altogether.
Spinning off the NetWinder was smart; Rebel.com (Linux on Transmeta "server appliances") is running with that ball and Corel still holds a stake in them.
The Linux-centric OS vendors are now finally starting to focus on the desktop users so Corel's mission on that front is accomplished. I'm sure Corel would love to see their own desktop-centric Linux OS division joining forces with an established distro vendor, but if the latter want to stick to their own guns, Corel might as well spin off their distro (i.e. the Linux OS division and their know-how) e.g. to the Linux Global Partners (?) who have already invested in many high-profile Linux projects (that are desktop-centric).
"Integrated Linux desktops" will be a result of _partnering_. Different vertical or geographical markets call for different partners. Corporations like Sun can afford to do a lot of subsidizing thanks to the huge revenues from their hardware sales (mostly tied to Solaris) unlike the bruised-by-Microsoft Corel.
It is ironic that, apart from dirty MS tricks, large reason for Corel's financial woes over the last few years was to believe in Sun's claims that Java was going to become viable as a desktop environment. The Java efforts cost Corel enormously, and how did Sun thank Corel for their efforts (let down by Sun's Java delivery)? By buying the fledgling StarDivision and flooding the market (esp. the Linux market) with free copies of the suite. Sure, Sun's main target was MS, but they're not exactly eating into MS-Office's marketshare on Windows... (why would the PC OEMs promote offerings by Sun, their competitor??) Furthermore, it is also ironic that the much-hyped OpenOffice project depends largely on Sun's contributions while Sun themselves see Linux as a threat to their cash-cow proprietary server market. (what does McNealy really want?)
There's your "three great ideas, all ahead of their time, all fouled up in the execution".
The "end-to-end" solution provider dream came pretty much to an end when Borland's shareholders (of whom MS is one, albeit not openly) and the MS-friendly press helped kill the merger plan last spring. Now MS remains the only source of integrated _office_ solutions, not surprisingly catering for the Windows environment(s) only. And all the big OEMs are still "offering" only MS-taxed desktop preloads. Despite the possibilities built-to-order manufacturing offers, where are the Linux or even WordPerfect Office on Windows options? The problem doesn't lie in Corel's corner...
The MS investment in Corel, and the highly restrictive agreements tied to the money, might have been a shrewed plan by Burney (whose father's been a career diplomat, btw) all along. Until that deal the regulators never gave a damn about Microsoft's second, and most lucrative, monopoly in Office suites. Now the Office suites are back in the agenda, just in time for the latest Appeals Court antitrust hearings which otherwise don't seem to go too well for the DOJ under the newly emboldened Republican mindset sweeping the US leadership. Corel looks set to keep much or all the M$ cash while MS gets more scrutiny for their anti-competitive behaviour besides probably having to sell their non-voting Corel shares anyway. Corel's spinning off the distro division also makes practically sure that MS can't use it as their proprietary yet limited
As a final note, I would like to express my deep disappointment for the negative editorial slant Mr. Taco consistently dishes out at Corel: "I kinda think its just spin, the kinda stuff you say when you're going down like 'Duck and Cover'" Also, just how hell does Corel's continued support for their distro, until a new owner is found, constitute "an apparent attempt to capitolize on the recent woes at Suse" !!?? What is dot-com millionaire Taco's beef with Corel? As if the FUD against Corel from the pro-MS press (like ZDNET) wasn't enough...
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A. Bullard
I have no control over the closed source stuff I write to pay the bills. My employer controls that. They use that control to restrict the freedom of the purchasers of that software.
You're being paid by your evil employers for doing their dirty deeds...
I think what Derek Burney actually means is that open source software removes his ability to extort money from his user base.
You don't happen to be on Corel's payroll by any chance?
In any case, I suggest you stop accepting "dirty" money from any company involved in such extortionist activities such as (dare I say it) selling software.
Way to go Corel! You've earned my contempt.
Yeah! Linux or its users need no steenkin' software companies! (well, one or two 100% GNU consultancies may continue to exist as long as noone gets paid). Hell, we should dump Leh-nooks while we're at it - GNU/HURD is the ONLY TRUE CHOICE!
Right.
Wouldn't billg really love that.
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A. Bullard
While Burney makes some stupid generalizations in his interview, your post is full of them, and yours are based on Corel's past mistakes made by the former CEO who Burney replaced. Now that's insightful.
Yes, you can make money with Linux, but Burney was talking about (selling) distributions and generally from an ISV's POV. It's not a goldmine, neither should it be, but to create a comprehensive MS replacement solution aimed at your average consumer (who are the ones buying apps) costs plenty. I like Red Hat (for their GPL policy for instance), but they have never pushed the desktop aspect (for you and me and our clueless relatives). Instead, RH went for the server bucks. No problem there, but it's apples vs. oranges. Corel is in the desktop apps business.
Did you read the article? Corel's distro was a vehicle for them to jumpstart the desktop business on Linux, to create a user-friendly platform on which to sell their desktop applications. Had it been a moneyspinner they probably had wanted to keep the Linux OS division, but apparently having it created unnecessary complications to their relationship with other distro vendors. Partner or foe?I want someone to provide the end-to-end solutions sooner rather than later as I'd like to "Linux" (as a verb) all my friends and relatives, but currently I'd end up doing tech support 24/7 myself. The Eazel & Ximian projects look promising to me in that respect.
Solid apps... yeah, Corel screwed up with their first WINE-based Linux release (WP Office 2000), but the later CorelDraw and PhotoPaint releases were actually okay (besides some distro-specific scripting and font server issues). I've heard that "service packs" might be under way, and that Corel is hoping (although not promising) that the next version upgrades would 1) ship simultaneously with the Windows versions, and 2) be native Linux executables using Winelib instead of the WINE runtime. Either way, WINE's a lot better now than it was a year ago anyway.
Surely you knew that Corel sold the NetWinder division to Rebel for a stake in that company. What's dumb about that? Huh? Which existing distro company was ready and willing to go for it in '99? Which distro company is willing to go for such arrangement now? Tell us, Corel is looking for just such a partner.Again, Corel didn't "get" the open source development model until it was too late, but their "wasted" coding efforts are freely available from Corel's CVS server.
Duh. WINE was seen as a useful tool in helping fill the gaps in Linux' desktop app offerings to enable consumers to migrate over. I want Corel to build native Linux apps as much as the next guy, but we aren't talking about Freecell here. It takes time, money and sweat. WINE, and Winelib, work great as the first steps for former Windows-only ISVs. I believe even IBM's SOHO business suite is "wined", with e.g. SmartSuite coming as a Windows-only filler. Oh, let's hold the former CEO's mistakes against Corel forever, shall we?If you want ISVs like Corel to get the hell outta Linux business, just say so. Personally I'd rather see the Windows ISV's supporting Linux so one day soon all of my friend or relatives could put their Windows partitions to better use.
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A. Bullard
Now there's a sales pitch to the software industry currently considering whether to provide software for the Linux desktop.
Is the community really hellbent on recreating or borging ("your code will be assimilated") most everything above the platform (operating system) services? Doesn't such mentality lead to the software industry (the one besides Open Source consulting services) staying away from Linux in droves?
As I see it, Linux is great as an enabling platform, but although often enthusiastic initially, many (if not most) Open Source projects aren't actually very successful in providing good end-user experiences (e.g. support or continuity). What already scratches a geek itch may leave your average end-user completely in the dark.
It's ironic that your pitch is exactly what Microsoft wants to hear and what the flame-kiddies have been saying all along; that Linux is no place for a thriving commercial marketplace, especially for the masses.
Who's the we getting all needed software? The corporation that affords to pay you a six-figure salary for being their Linux showpiece thanks to their proprietary hardware (and software) business - Hewlett-Packard?In any case, you certainly aren't speaking for me.
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A. Bullard
Unlike in '99 when Corel released their consumer distro, now the Gnome and KDE have gotten their proverbial shit together and the end-user friendliness is starting to show. Unlike the business/server oriented distro companies, the consumer-oriented Mandrake and to lesser extent SuSE have easier time to build user-friendly Linux editions. The upcoming seamless (and intelligent) update utilities and infrastructures look very impressive, promising to make Linux the easiest-to-maintain platform to date.
Even as a mere Linux app vendor, Corel can still provide occasional touches and polish to strategically important projects if they so desire. But their own Corel-branded distro has become unnecessary and frankly I'd rather not see all the thousands upon thousands of app vendors planning to build their own distros, even if LSB will some day make them more or less interoperable.
Actually, I believe the Corel distro operation was slightly profitable, at least until all the FUD about Corel quitting all things Linux started flying around. But the downside was that all the other distro vendors saw Corel as a competitor and not as a partner selling cross-platform productivity solutions to MS-infested businesses. Red Hat et al could certainly use additional weapons to help them win more business accounts.
If Corel's next Linux versions of WPO (2002) and Draw 10 can be ported into native executables using Winelib (which I believe to be their plan) instead of the current WINE runtime approach, I might finally take the bait. I'm quite suspicious of Sun's motives behind their "office politics", and even more so of Microsoft's own-it-all monopoly abuse. A native WPO for Linux would fit the bill nicely.
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A. Bullard
What kind of idiot wouldn't want James Earl Jones announcing the steps of the boot process?
Now that would be smashing. I'd have my box boot up with a baby cry that ominously transforms into a Darth Vader-like behind-the-mask voice with the first words being: "You're my father!"
But seriously, voice feedback would be great, esp. if Linux got there first. Text-to-voice has existed for over a decade, so what is needed is a Vader-like voice profile and a kernel module taking control early on.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind having Dear Vader read me my mail aloud, and web pages too.
For Windows addicts, the only "choice" of voices available should naturally be the whiny, high-pitched nasal output of their own Great Chairman.
Are these sub-subs available without having to pay the Microsoft Tax?
Also, I recall reading that the TM-5x00 series of Crusoes has been "optimized" for MS-Windows while they also support "other x86-based operating systems", incl. Linux. Are they also "optimized" for Linux, or was that just market-speak for x86 tuning? Can the processors (the Code Morphin' core) be upgraded by customers themselves, if necessary or desirable?
The possibility of litigation as a deterrant?
Many big businesses have important applications built in-house that they'd like to be able to run stably under WIN32 environment such as WINE not only because W2K et al are very expensive to deploy but to get off the forced upgrade merry-go-round altogether. Now, having paying customers moving away from the influence of MS-Windows is a scary no-revenue no-control no-win proposal for Microsoft.
It may only take some serious questioning by MS about the purity of the WIN32 alternatives' clean-room implementation to scare off large potential customers from investing in the alternative to MS-Windows.
Perhaps such fears would end up making Borland's Delphi -> Kylix approach more attractive since Borland, IIRC, has settled their IP issues with MS, and the resulting binaries would be native on multiple platforms (Linux and WindowsXX initially).
WINE is a very useful project, but perhaps they'd ought to draw a line somewhere, stop chasing the ever-changing WIN32 APIs-of-the-day ad nauseum and concentrate on perfecting the most common legacy WINxx environments while creating a mature and non-changing Winelib target for those WINxx ISVs who want to target Linux customers the easy but supportable way.
MS can still win small battles with their FUD, but the momentum in the war has turned to our advantage.
Um, duh, did the context of the story ("Wine runs Word 2000 and Excel 2000") escape you, or has someone actually run Mac OS versions of MS-Office apps under non-MS Windows environment such as Wine?
MS used the restrictive license for their applications (one de facto monopoly) to protect their operating system monopoly on PC's.
Btw, _Mac_OS_ isn't one of Micros~1's own trademarked Windows[tm] versions, you got that right.
Talking about the Mac OS and MS-Office, what's Appleworks' (the only "suitish" alternative there) marketshare like? Is MS-Office for Mac not the result of Microsoft's investment in then-dying Apple back in '98 (contractual 5-year agreement along with cash infusion similar to those in Borland and Corel later on to prop up the appearance of competition)? Can you come up with any better examples of MS action _not_ designed to protect their monopoly control?
I haven't bought or used Micros~1's, eh, products for over half a decade (and therefore haven't got their licensing booklets handy), but it used to be common knowledge that they didn't allow their apps to be run under anything but their own trademarked Windows[tm] versions. True/False/Escape?
Btw, I don't really understand why some people are so eager to support the other monopoly Micros~1 has, especially when supported commercial or open-source alternatives do exist.
We don't need to respond to MS "in kind" - just let them keep the low ground they've taken.
Instead, the Linux luminaries in Germany (and elsewhere) should gear up for a PR campaign to highlight Linux's natural evolution and "survival of the fittest" versus Microsoft's commercial dictatorship of computing infrastructure.
Let's take the high ground and thank MS for publicizing Linux's versatility.
Well, _D_ebian isn't exactly a struggling competitor by any standard. Besides, they have no legal issues to be settled nor proprietary treasures that could be locked away as everything is released as genuine Open Source.
MS appears to take some 18 months or so between alphabets so we still have a while to identify the next competitor to be staked.
Hmm, wasn't _E_azel planning an IPO in not-so-distant future?
Do I see a pattern here? MS beats competition (_A_pple, _B_orland _C_orel etc.) to the ground before grabbing a stake in them, "settling legal issues" and leaving them on lifesupport so that everything looks fine and dandy to the gov't watchdogs. Was Corel's Office for Linux a real threat to MS, and what will become of Corel's Linux initiatives after this?
IIRC some state attorney-generals were planning (in '97, '98?) to sue MS for using the Windows monopoly to kill competitors to MS-Office, but that suit was put on a backburner when the DOJ managed to pull the AGs together for the browser/anti-trust case instead. Perhaps Corel didn't have the money to pursue that suit and settled for MS Airsupply instead. How sad, how MS.
Anyway, now I almost hope that Corel the MS-subsidiary would get out of the Linux space and leave the arena to companies and communities not owned by Microsoft.
And the "_core_ of the Mac OS X" is mainstream? Forgetting for a moment that Mac OS X or even its v1.0 release date haven't been actually announced yet.
That's some serious mainstream but only inside Apple's own private sand box (where RDF levels are often very hazardous to sanity).
So, even if we would mercifully consider "the core of Mac OS X" having anything to do with Apple's 5% (4% in 1998) market share on the desktop (IDG)- which is a "WHOLE LOT MORE" than Linux' 17% on servers (source?) - you forgot to add Linux' 4% desktop market share (IDG; 0.4% in 1998) into the equation.
Dear Leader Jobs is almost done "milking Mac OS for all it's worth" so now it must be time to increase the intensity in milking the good name of Open Source.
APPLE IS THE UNDISPUTED LEADER IN OPEN SOURCE is not much different from APPLE INVENTED OPEN SOURCE; both claims are equally true but only to persons believing in Apple.
Someone needs to swing a hammer at that QuickTime screen you've all been watching...
They refer to Caldera Systems as "Caldera" and say it was founded in '94 when "Caldera Systems" ("Linux for eBusiness") is in fact a subsidiary of Caldera and was spinned off on September 02, 1998 along with "Caldera Thin Clients, Inc." (since renamed as Lineo).
I believe it is a bit irresponsible for a "Linux stock site" to keep using the wrong title for the company especially when it was Caldera and not Caldera Systems that agreed to settle the DR-DOS suit with Microsoft for an unspecified sum.
CmdrTaco plugs in his opening the Linsight entry for Caldera Systems as a good summary. Hello? There is next to no useful (and correct) information for potential investors. Could someone kindly answer or correct answers to the following questions:
1) What percentage of the stock is available for public, how many shares are there in total and who owns those?
2) 10% of the public offering (which itself was 5% of total) was targeted to selected Open Source developers and _friends_. What was the breakdown between friends and developers (who have only seem to have gotten a number of shares closer to the low end of the 100-500 share allocation per person)?
3) Which individual owns 73% and controls everything?
4) Who got in before the IPO at $6 per share? (Sun, SCO, Citrix, Novell etc.)
5) Fiscal '99 results: $3mil revenue and $9.4mil loss.
6) Quarter ending Jan. 31.: $553,000 of revenue and a net loss of $5.5 million
7) Product portfolio: OpenLinux distro (and...?)
8) Open Source licensing status of OpenLinux (or other products)?
Every single well-informed CALD investor should be able to answer these questions so let's see if anyone's interested. What comes to Linsight, they would serve those interested in "Linux stocks" much better by also delivering important facts about covered companies instead of only scratching the surface and keeping tabs of companies' PR releases.
IIRC Corel licensed VBA from from M$ last year, probably not be totally shunned from the business sector that M$ helds hostage.
However the merger with Inprise/Borland will give the combined company ability to also integrate the Delphi/Kylix scripting capabilities with Corel's Office for Linux and _that_ should make Corel's Office (for Linux or 'doze) a lot more attractive to enterprises.
"Innovation" without (adequately) well documented public specs is hopefully becoming a thing of a past. Like Apple, the PC industry has its warts, but unlike Apple the PC industry gives customers (and OEMs) the choice of buying/building non-proprietary systems which *cannot* be singlehandedly obsoleted by some arrogant CEO.
Apple's "PC's" are nice thanks mostly to their choice of CPUs (that "G3" or "G4" after "Powermac") but otherwise always a little behind the "PC industry's" cutting edge. That's because on the PC side it's not just Compaq, Dell, Gateway etc. "innovating" their own closed technologies but a much richer ecosystem of specialized companies who want to be compatible with the industry to maximize the size of their potential market. Like with Open Source, the New Apple is tapping into the large pool of freely available resources with pleasure while still keeping the end result essentially a locked "Apple solution".
And what "additions to OSC work" is Apple giving back to community anyway that they weren't required to give back in the first place _and_ what didn't primarily advance Apple's own platform-challenged agenda behind the curtain?
What benefit is it for Apple to e.g. keep withholding the _specs_ (and not complete system schemas btw.) of discontinued systems?
How do you and Apple "get" that in an intellectually and artistically superior way?
This "story" by CmdrTaco is certainly one of the weirdest I've seen in a while. 10% investment advice and 90% very personally taken _off-topic_ rant justifying rejected submissions.
Or is the rant really off-topic?
As it happens, another - and 100% Linux and Slashdot-related - investment story has been posted to both Linux Weekly News (2/17) and Linux Today (2/19). (Would these be "cheesy little websites with the word "Linux" that CmdrTaco was referring to in his rant?) The story these other two Linux news sites posted was based on an article in the Financial Observer titled "The Latest Rip-offs From Dot-Com Land" and it cast Slashdot's former and current owners in rather bad light. Yes, it was about investing.
"One of the most cynical deals recently involves the merger of two software companies trying to cash in on the Linux operating system craze: Andover.net Inc. of Acton, Mass., and VA Linux Systems Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif.-which went public within 24 hours of each other back in early December. Less than eight weeks later, on Feb. 3, the two companies announced a stock-for-stock merger..."
"As for investors in VA Linux, they are getting hosed... the only really valuable asset Andover.net ever had - it's cash from the I.P.O.-was creamed off by the company's insiders almost the very instant they got their hands on it, leaving VA Linux's shareholders to face a 100 percent increase in the float of their own stock for the privilege of winding up with the worthless trash that the Andover.net bunch dumped at the very first opportunity."
Now, this story with IMO considerable relevance to Slashdot readers (not only because these companies own Slashdot and made her founders very wealthy, but also because so many stories were posted here in the past plugging these companies and their IPO) was certainly submitted a number of times but it's getting rejected while another story about MS having owning 10% of Inprise now ends up with 4% of Corel passes the submission filters.
Call me cynical and a conspiracy theorist but I find it hard to believe that CmdrTaco finds the posted story more interesting or relevant to himself and his audience than the one rejected.
Feel free to moderate this down down down.
No, I don't think you're a loonie, but for starters have a look around yourself. Do you have schemas for any single one of those (hardware) gadgets around you? For PCs, monitors, printers, modems, TVs, radios and what not...? I didn't think so.
Transmeta happened to sink billions into the development of a chip that goes into a gadget. It happens to have a partially "soft core" but it's still there to run your software like any other CPU or DSP. Now, unless Transmeta stands out from the hardware crowd and open sources their Crusoe schemas you're labelling their employee-of-the-month Mr Torvals as a GNU-traitor or his employment there as an ethical compromise? Are you saying that Torvalds could not work for any hardware company without losing his integrity in your eyes?
As your examples for ethical (?) companies you cite SuSE, Turbolinux and VALinux. The former two do have closed source enhancements and applications in their distros, no? VALinux doesn't give you the schemas for their hardware either, do they? Transmeta builds a new chip (and even optimizes it to run Linux), open sources the Mobile Linux distro they've worked on as they should but they are somehow evil? Like IBM and other large hardware companies that have come around to support Linux?
You "support Metcalfe's pointing out the strong smell of hypocrisy surrounding certain actions by some in the open Source community". It only smells like ludicrucy and sour grapes in here.
The sooner we stop hitting links leading to Metcalfe the sooner the poor guy finds his peace in retirement. He's not going to "get it" in this lifetime.
What suprises me though is why the highly-esteemd Infoworld still publishes his tabloid column.
Susie?
Lizzie?
SuseLeon? (SUSE chameLEON)
Liscot? (LInux maSCOT)
Scot? (Suse masCOT
or simply Otto!
I'd like to add to this list:
5) Streaming video codecs/player
Looking at the list of vendors working on Linux-based "info appliances" surely at least some of these companies realize that support for streaming media is a must for a consumer-oriented information or Internet appliances. The Missing Broadcasting Link...